Keep in mind that in 2009, when Obama was mulling over his options in Afghanistan, Biden counseled him to get the U.S. out of the country by the most expeditious route possible. In the end, Obama decided on a small-scale surge strategy that kept us in country over a decade more.
This is a decision that the Blob-favoring analysts and their ilk tend to ignore when they claim that Biden has been on the “wrong side of every foreign policy decision of the past 30 years” or some similar phrasing.
So yeah, I’m ready to give him a pass on his eight years as veep, seeing as how if he had been in the top job, this would have happened a decade ago.
Then, to be a bit frank, you seem to be coming from a place of ignorance. Without a stabilizing force, it was always going to go badly. There also was no last minute scramble. All of these people have been told they need to leave for months now. They chose to stay, and the President of the United States has no power to force them to leave.
The plan was always to get a stabilizing force in, but that didn’t work out. And then pretty much everyone expected the Taliban takeover to take more like 60 days. It is only hindsight bias that leads to people thinking they needed to get everyone out ASAP after ceasing operations.
Last I checked, the VP does not have any authority over the military. And VP Biden was not delegated any extra by Obama powers as far as I know. So, no, it doesn’t count.
And, no, the “corrupt bureaucrats and generals” are not to blame. The US did not train the Afghan army to be able to fight this war once they pulled out. They trained them to be good US soldiers who have the benefit of our technology, firepower, and intelligence (in the spy sense. They’re not dumb). The US did not engage in any nation building, as it never does. It let the opposition fester, becoming stronger and stronger.
The choice for those in charge was to be executed, along with their families, or to go along with the new government. People tend to want to stay alive and protect their families. Blaming them is not a very nuanced position.
All in all, I would say you have a too rosy view of withdrawal by half, and have been getting your information more from brief news articles than in depth coverage. I continue to recommend everyone to check out Beau of the Fifth Column on YouTube, who has been covering this off and on since the deal was made. If you didn’t know that part of trying to get back in the Iran deal was to get a security force in Iraq, or that China had even tried to step in and provide that force, or have not heard people reporting on what people on the ground are saying, they I do not think you have a very nuanced picture of what went on.
This was, again, much more successful than it had any right to be. Biden took the political hit, because Americans don’t like to see what it looks like when we lose. But this is not at all what it would look like if things actually went badly. We got out—a new war didn’t start. Casualties were actually quite limited, less than in other US withdrawals.
As Beau said, probably the biggest hit was the messaging. They should have explained why just throwing in helicopters or defending the city were not viable options. (Helicopters make great targets, and we didn’t even have enough troops there to secure an airport. That’s what happens when you are withdrawing.)
Just because Biden bit the bullet doesn’t mean he deserves the bulk of the blame.
Though I guess I do bear the blame in bringing this up, thinking I could cover it generally without having to go deeper. I’m the one who says we should always be strategic in how we respond, and I should have known that this would elicit such a response. It then leads to legitimate discussion, which makes it appear like this thread serves a purpose.
It’s why everyone is pushing the OP to defend their claim, rather than assuming what they were talking about.
Give the “unpresidented” sheer scale and tenacity of the evil in office during that term, I think maladministration does not come close enought to describing it. If I may coin a term, malevo-administration fits the bill.
Right. And condemning someone as “stupid” becuase they stutter is evil enough all by itself. Stuttering is not an indication of a lack of intelligence.
The claim was “happened under other people’s watch” which is a pass I rarely hear two-term VP’s getting. It’s not enough to say he wanted out of Afghanistan.
Put it like this: Let’s say that I am the Deputy Manager of a factory that has been making defective batteries for 8 years. When investigators come, is it enough to say “Hell, I told the boss we should be making ice cream instead of batteries, but he didn’t wanna”? No: given the decision to make batteries, it’s my (partial) responsibility to make sure they work.
Now, if I had been saying for 8 years the way we are making batteries is flawed and needs to change, and the boss ignored me, then we could say I was absolved of blame. And likewise I’d want to hear that Biden did the equivalent with Afghanistan before giving him a pass.
Huh? What made you think I was putting most, or all, of the blame on Biden? I was simply arguing against the claim that he’s blameless, and even that it didn’t happen on his watch.
LOL. You begin with this sentence, and then the rest of your post completely concedes the point by giving examples of errors, but handwaving them as not important. Let’s go through the reasons you gave:
Right, which is an example of a failing, and something we could be critical of. Yes?
Most have no ability to leave. The US relied on these people for years and they were critical to the safety of US troops. It’s not enough to tell them to go fish.
Again, the statement was that this happened on other people’s watch, which is just nonsense.
The VP doesn’t have authority over virtually anything, however he does have close communication with military commanders, all the same military briefings as the president and of course close contact with the president.
Now, Biden told the president that we should leave Afghanistan. Good. But before I would consider him blameless, I would want to know what he did and said within the two terms where it was clear the US wasn’t going to leave anytime soon.
Agreed. But we can be nuanced here on the Dope. We don’t have to say “Up” just because the other side said “Down”.
And note that it is not only Republicans jumping to all-or-nothing positions like this.
I was annoyed to watch The David Pakman Show and hear a segment where he entirely talked about a straw man; that critics of Biden must necessarily want a forever war.